The Power of Language

“Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? . . . Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now? . . . The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking -- not needing to think.”

With these chilling words, George Orwell introduced a novel and revolutionary concept into our collective cultural consciousness -- namely, that the way to hasten the immolation of any society is to first destroy its ability to communicate. Within the context of Orwell’s dystopian tour de force, 1984, this societal Gotterdammerung is effected by undermining the very foundation of Oceania’s language, slowly and systematically, with an intricate web of conniving machinations so subtle that the duped masses do not even realize the full import of what is happening until it is far too late. We, as readers, see in lurid living detail how the human person, robbed of his ability to communicate, is effectively stripped of his ability to influence society. For ideas, as Orwell would have us know, are of no use to anybody who lacks the means to articulate them.

Within the pages of his compelling tale, however, an equal but opposite truth emerges to the more discerning reader: that, conversely, he who possesses the ability to communicate possesses the means to transform culture. The ultimate use of language is not in a destructive capacity, but in a creative one, and it is this very power of language which is a fundamental reality upon which any civilized society pivots. It is this reality, so self-evident and yet so fraught with implications, which attracted many of us to the study of English in the first place.

In the course of my own history, I was fascinated by the power of words from a very young age. I was all but nocturnal in my childhood years, reading in the dark and ruining my eyes, spending long and sleepless nights poring over Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Poe, Emily Dickinson, the Brontes, and Jane Austen, Dickens and Shakespeare, Chesterton and Lewis. I was a self-avowed bookworm -- to other, less kind observers, a nerd -- but somewhere in the midst of all those mad midnight encounters, I learned to love literature, free from any trace of pedantry and sophistry, apart from any utilitarian value it might hold, but simply for its own sake.

I was simultaneously drawn to the possibility of co-creation intrinsic to the art form. The very fact that storytelling was not a dead art at all, but rather, a vibrant, living one, fascinated me and inexplicably took hold of my consciousness from the inside out. I was dictating stories at three before I had mastered the motor skills to compose them. At seven, I had moved on to frantically scribbling plays, poetry, and brief sketches about a friendly rabbit named Harles; at ten, I completed a series of short stories about a prepubescent detective, loosely based on myself, of course; at eleven, a maudlin and exceedingly poorly written full-length novella followed; at fifteen, I published my first article. Throughout this period, I was fortunate enough to find myself surrounded by friends and teachers who fostered my interests and encouraged these earliest literary ventures, sub-stellar though they may have been.

At sixteen, I graduated from high school, and the following fall, I began a course of study in English Language and Literature at Christendom College which was both comprehensive and fulfilling. I studied a vast array of authors from a veritable smorgasbord of eras, from Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare to F. Scott Fitzgerald and J.R.R. Tolkien, from pre-civilized ancient Greece to medieval Europe to twentieth-century America and Great Britain. I was in ecstasies at the possibilities which surrounded me, and constantly found myself concocting new and inventive ways to expand my literary horizons. I directed Hamlet and Midsummer Night's Dream for the theater department, supplemented my once-myopic perspective with courses in philosophy, history, and theology, wrote the odd article for the school newspaper, studied Ovid, Livy, and the Italian Renaissance on a semester abroad in Rome, and researched and wrote a forty-page senior thesis on the Shakespearean authorship controversy and the seventeenth Earl of Oxford.

Ultimately, it was during that period that I developed my life’s aspirations, disparate yet interrelated, each uniquely derived from the single unifying principle by which I have ordered all my academic endeavors: to wit, the use of language to effect the transformation of culture. If, platitudinously but truly, the pen is indeed mightier than the sword, then it is the writers of this generation who bear the greatest burden of responsibility for using their gifts to inspire and influence others, to convey truths of vast and eternal cosmic significance in the teeth of public opinion, to capture the hearts of humanity and help them to achieve clarity of vision.

Upon the completion of further studies in English, I, first and foremost, hope to write great works, of various types and various genres, which will enable others to delve into themselves and uncover their own untapped potential. Through fiction, the human person can indirectly attain knowledge of his own nature, of his own interior workings, of man in the context of his interpersonal relationships, of man and his place in the cosmos; through nonfiction, these same tenets may be explored in a more direct manner. I do not intend to limit the scope of my creativity in the future, but rather to explore each realm fully. I intend to write novels, to write scripts, to write poetry; I intend to write essays and editorials and biographies, for each has its proper place in society, and a truly great writer must be well-rounded in every sense of the word. The common underlying theme of each of these writings, however, must always be the discovery and recovery of what it means to be human. Socrates’ wise dictum, an equally resonant challenge to modern-day man with his neurotic psychoses and his nebulous sense of identity, was “know thyself.” The Bard reiterated this exhortation in Hamlet, penning the immortal words, “This above all / To thine own self be true / And it must follow, as the night the day, / Thou canst not then be false to any man.” Writing thus becomes a hallowed endeavor, an apostolate of mercy, an ennobled mission to reveal man to himself.

Similarly, I intend to heed the Cassandra-like croakings of Orwell in 1984, and undertake to not only make use of what I personally have been given, but to ensure that the gift that is literacy is placed in the protection of future generations as well. The written word is a thing of mysterious permanence, and thus the very future of society, the preservation of its history, the continuation of its purpose, belongs to those who not only know how to think, but know how to put into words what they think. With that in mind, I also intend to pursue some teaching in the future as well. Modern education is standing in desperate need of a resurgence of interest in literature, rhetoric, composition, and the fine arts. We are an increasingly technical and technological era, an era of transient realities and disposable values, of instant gratification and laissez-faire morality. The short-lived nature of our collective societal attention span and the jaded dispassion with which we view the things which are truly important bear witness to the fact that we desperately need a new renaissance of art and literature, for through these venues we may hope to explore the eternal questions of who we are, why we are here, where we came from, and where we are going. A real and abiding appreciation for this sort of self-discovery is something which must be instilled from the very foundation – in the classroom.

In all these ways, while Orwell’s 1984 provided society with a devastating and soul-wrenching depiction of the power of illiteracy, in the final analysis, Orwell’s lesson is an incomplete one. As lovers of the English language, we must cling with the most fervent hope and obdurate passion to the converse but coequal tenet: that ultimately, the power of literacy to prevail is much stronger still. My own study of English literature has equipped me well in the past to embark on a personal quest to revive the art of storytelling and to instill new appreciation of the infinite significance of the written word and its redemptive power in those around me. I trust it will continue to do so.

When I was three, I wanted to write the books that would change the world. It was a dream well worth pursuing.

It still is.